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Jane Doe says police still in dark

When she strode across city council chambers, startling a police chief by extending her hand, Jane Doe was offering more than just a handshake.

It was an olive branch from one of the Toronto police force's most fervid opponents, a symbolic end to her decade-long struggle for an apology after being used as human bait to catch a rapist.

In that moment, after then Toronto police chief David Boothby had publicly admitted his service had mistreated her, Doe hoped that women would never again face the bias and sexism she did and that officers would be specially trained to handle sex crimes."I'm moving on here," Doe said at the time. But 10 years after that handshake, Doe is as bitter as ever. "Nothing has changed," she says.

This summer, a steering committee that Doe had served on for two years was disbanded by the police board.

"It really broke my heart," she says. "It represents a tremendous loss for women in the city and for policing."

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But much has changed since Paul Douglas Callow, known as the Balcony Rapist, stole through her open bedroom window 22 years ago, put a knife to her throat and raped her. The sex assault squad has grown from a 20-detective, 9-to-5 shoestring outfit to a bustling 30-detective operation with officers on call night and day. Its mandate has changed, too, from focusing only on stranger rape involving penetration to investigating any sexual assault in which there could be an ongoing danger to the public.

But the criticism from Doe, well known as both victim and activist, raises the question: Are women in the GTA safer and treated better by police now than 20 years ago, when she started her crusade?

Who is right – the police or Jane Doe?

Minutes after a masked Callow disappeared from her bedroom on Aug. 24, 1986, a half-dozen officers filled Doe's apartment near Church and Wellesley Sts.

Their arrival set into motion what would become the heart of her now-famous lawsuit against police – she was awarded $220,000 – and her two-decade-long struggle to reform an organization the presiding judge ruled was systemically sexist.

Questions flew from all sides that summer night, Doe wrote in her 2003 book The Story of Jane Doe. She was forced to rehash her ordeal again and again to the officers, none of whom had any special training for sex assault victims. Doe wasn't asked if she wanted to go to hospital. She was told she had to.

No one explained how a rape kit worked. One officer, she wrote, advised her not to pee before seeing a doctor.

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For Doe, the investigation was as bad as the crime. Today, the squad, the service and its approach are wholly revamped, says sex crimes unit Staff Insp. Elizabeth Byrnes.

She is in her office on the third floor of police headquarters, mug shots of Toronto's most infamous rapists lining a wall.

Paul Bernardo's face is front and centre.

Callow is off to the right.

The squad is part of the 70-person Sex Crimes Unit, which includes divisions focusing on child exploitation, behavioural assessments and special victims.

Changes to the system, Byrnes says, are owed in part to Doe's dogged wrangling. For instance, after recommendations from the steering committee, squad officers now get specialized training. Other changes include:

Ten years ago, out of 1,570 sexual assaults reported in Toronto, the squad only investigated 70 cases because of its restrictive mandate. Last year, under the new rules, the Sex Crimes Unit probed 2,551 cases. "We've made the crime a priority," Byrnes says.

Amid such evolution, she questions Doe's continuing focus on police. Why, she wonders, does the burden of change rest solely rest on the already sagging shoulders of the Toronto force?

"It should include the courts, public opinion," Byrnes says. "You can't just fix one aspect in a vacuum."

Doe is calm this day. She argues that society benefits from rape – it's a male "coercion" tactic, a tool that keeps men on top. She dismisses the police changes as "minor procedural tinkering."

The apex of her discontent came this summer during an acrimonious meeting with the Toronto Police Services Board when it dissolved the steering committee and created an all-new advisory committee with a fresh mandate – and no Doe.

Police board chair Alok Mukherjee says after two years and $40,000, it was time to stop talking and take action.

Among those named to the new advisory committee, which will recommend practical changes to help victims move through the justice system, were a Crown attorney, lawyer and nurse – front-line workers, unlike Doe, who has no institutional affiliation.

It's a myth, Doe asserts, that her lawsuit changed the face of sexual assault investigations. Society's stubborn perceptions of rape and assault have not altered. Rape stigmas are still strong. That's why, she says, after all these years, she continues to refuse to reveal her real name.

"You still can't disconnect the sexual violence from the woman," Doe says.

"I'm a teacher, a social activist, a political animal. If I use my real name then all of those other identities fall away and I become a rape victim."

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